


In the Seam

by woozi



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, M/M, Soulmate AU, Soulmates, more to be added - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-09-16 13:33:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9274292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woozi/pseuds/woozi
Summary: Feeling your soulmate's pain isn't ideal, especially in Iwaizumi's case.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this tumblr post: “Maybe the little bruises and cuts that show up on your body seemingly out of nowhere are actually little injuries that happened to your soulmate and you get the same marks on your skin as them”.

Iwaizumi turned seven last week. He’s quite proud, since he gets to rub it in Oikawa’s face and watch him scowl since the latter was still six and would be for another month. In fact, he just told his friend once again; that he was seven. He was seven and older than and superior to him, therefore _he_ deserves the blue butterfly net that actually _was_ his but Oikawa had stole it sometime last year, since it was ‘prettier than the green one’.

 

“That’s not fair, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa is distressed, clutching the butterfly net protectively to his chest. There is sweat and dirt sticking to his face as he pants, just having chased a cicada a minute ago. He’s shooting him quite the glare, and Iwaizumi gives one right back.

 

“It is. It’s really mine anyway.” Hajime crosses his arms, huffing up his chest to him. The green butterfly net was left for dead, abandoned a couple feet away from them in the garden.

 

Oikawa does not relent. He holds his stare expertly before his eyes soften, and he sticks out his bottom lip in a pout. Iwaizumi tries not to get annoyed. His mom bought that net for him! He let Oikawa have it for a year, and now he deserved it back. He was _seven,_ after all.

 

“I don’t care,” Oikawa states eventually, expression hardening up again once he realizes his pout did nothing for him. His dirty hands don’t loosen their grip on the pole of the net. “You gave it to me, so it’s mine.”

 

“I did not!” Iwaizumi yells, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Stop lying. I’m going to tell on you.”

 

Iwaizumi was not a tattle-tale. He left exposing someone to drastic situations where it was definitely needed. Especially with Oikawa, since his friend would cry and cry until Iwaizumi ended up being the one apologizing.

 

Oikawa sticks his chin out, squinting at him. He’s scrutinizing his face. “You wouldn’t.”

 

“I would.” Iwaizumi nods furiously. It’s not in his nature, but he wants his net. A cicada buzzes past his face.

 

All morals are thrown out of the window. Oikawa thrases the net out in hopes to catch it, but Iwaizumi just tackles him to the grass. The wispy brunette screams as he’s slammed down, the force on his back winding him. They are a clash of arms and fists for a couple moments - Iwaizumi accidentally gets him in the mouth while Oikawa’s purposely kicking into his stomach.

 

Suddenly, Iwaizumi jolts a little from a needle-shooting pain in his front tooth. He staggers for a moment, briefly wondering where it came from before he remembers his original quest. Oikawa isn’t fighting anymore, oddly enough, so he’s granted an opportunity to simply pluck the net out of his hands. Pushing away the pain in his mouth, he jumps back up, whirring around in search of the cicada.

 

“Look what you did! It’s gone! - Hey,”

 

Iwaizumi’s frustration simmers when he notices Oikawa still in the grass, crying to himself with a hand over his mouth. There’s blood dribbling down his chin. Iwaizumi drops the net; the anger and pain forgotten.

 

“Hey, hey,” The raven boy slides over to him, landing on his knees before trying to pry Oikawa’s hand from his mouth. “What’s wrong?”

 

Oikawa continues to wail. He looks really ugly; snot running so far out of his nose it’s getting on his hand that will not detach itself from the younger boys’ mouth. His face is red and blotchy, tears falling freely and soaking his cheeks.

 

“Stop it,” Iwaizumi begs, not used to Oikawa not saying anything when he’s hurt. Sure he cries a lot, but he always has something to yell at him for. While Oikawa keeps gasping in breaths between sobs, he decides to defend himself. “I barely touched you!”

 

“My tooth!” Oikawa finally wails, and Iwaizumi gives a final tug at his hand until it’s wrenched free from his face. Sure enough, there’s a huge gap where his front tooth used to be. He’s openly sobbing so it’s not hard to see his bloody mouth. Weirdly, seeing the mess triggers the sharp pain in his exact same tooth. Maybe Oikawa had hit him in the mouth, too, and he just hadn’t noticed. Overall, he knocked his friends tooth out, so Iwaizumi panics.

 

“Was that a baby tooth!?” He scavenges around for the tooth in the grass, and when he doesn’t find it he checks his hand. He didn’t think he hit him that hard! Plus, it was an accident!

 

“Yes, but it hurts, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa whines, wiping his snot off his face with his arm.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” He rushes out, throwing his arms around Oikawa for a hug, desperate for him to stop crying before his mother came out to check on them, “Don’t tell on me, okay? I didn’t mean to, I swear!”

 

Oikawa sniffles against his shoulder and Iwaizumi’s sure he’s getting blood all over it too, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to make sure his friends alright. He’s lost a couple teeth the hard way, too. He really emphasized with him at the moment.

  


“I won’t tell.” Oikawa says once he stops crying. They had found the tooth by then, and Oikawa’s been gaping at it in his palm for a good three minutes. _The tooth fairy will come get it tonight and you’ll get money. See, it’s not that bad_ , Iwaizumi had told him in efforts to get him to calm down. “You can have your net.”

 

Iwaizumi casts a glance over at him, questioning. Oikawa was never this compliant. The brunette is still studying his tooth, which is now covered in drying blood, saliva, and dirt. It’s pretty gross, but he was thankful the brunette was finished crying. He had checked the windows of his house a couple times, on the lookout, and was pleased to know his mother hadn’t heard them.

  
“Just keep it.” Iwaizumi mumbles, lying back in the grass. He grits his teeth together to try and dull the ache that, for some reason, isn’t easing up.


	2. Chapter 2

Soulmates seem to drive the human population, Iwaizumi thinks.

 

Every sixth grader is required to take a Soulmate Education class. It’s kind of dumb, because it’s rare to find anyone this young, and most of the information has been engraved into everyone’s minds since birth.

However, that doesn’t stop his teacher from assigning a worksheet once a week, along with a daily log of random pain or injuries that show up. The worksheets are quite personal, honestly, Iwaizumi doesn’t know why his teacher needs most of this information. Oikawa groans from across the room, and Iwaizumi listens to him throw his pencil on the ground. 

 

“How are we supposed to know the answers to this stuff? I don’t spend every second of my day thinking about what a random bruise means!” He complains, rolling onto his back on the wooden floor. 

 

Iwaizumi shrugs, having scribbled down some random answer himself. He did think about it when he first saw something show up, but he doesn’t usually linger on it. He couldn’t remember too much from when he was younger, but from what his memory allowed, his soulmate didn’t necessarily injure themselves too much. The occasional bruise on the knee, cut on the hand. Nothing too extreme, from what they learn in class.

 

“Sensei is just trying to help, I’m pretty sure,” Iwaizumi offers. “I never get anything too bad but I guess it helps to keep track of it.”

 

Oikawa rolls his eyes. “My soulmate has to be really lame, I never get anything out of the ordinary. There’s nothing to show off, I could have just done these things to myself!”

 

“Do you have anything right now?” Iwaizumi perks up, curious. They never really talked about this; both not paying the whole soulmate thing too much mind. 

 

“Actually,” Oikawa sits up straight, checking his limbs like he’s looking for something. “Yeah. Here.” He twists his leg awkwardly to show off the back of his calf. A fading bruise is bloomed over his pale skin, sort of big and yellowish. Iwaizumi remembers when he bashed the back of his leg on his bike pedal last week, and had a ginormous bruise for a couple days. It was hard to walk from the soreness, honestly. It’s pretty much gone now, he’s gotten a tan since it’s been a bit warmer out so it’s not as noticeable anymore. He doesn’t really dwell on it.  

 

“That’s ugly.” He comments flatly. “Did it hurt?”

 

“For a bit. So it must have really hurt them if I felt it for that long.” 

 

One thing Iwaizumi had a difficult time understanding was the pain scale. The intensity of your soulmates injury would be felt for about a second, and if it was bad enough it’d reduce down to an ache. Which really sucked if the soulmate broke a limb or something. If it was something simple, like a paper cut, it would sting for a second, and then disappear. The next day, one would probably have a scabbed cut. Extreme injuries, such as severe burns, amputation, deadly car accidents, would leave a scar. 

 

“Do you have anything?” Oikawa asks, stretching to look Iwaizumi over anyway.

 

“Surprisingly, no.” He guesses they are done with homework for now, so he drops his pencil. “The only thing worth acknowledging was this nasty cut I got on my ankle about a month ago.”

 

Oikawa’s expression turns to pity, and he tsks as he goes on to say, “Poor Iwa-chan. Maybe you don’t have a soulmate.”

 

“Shut up.” Iwaizumi hisses, flinging his arm at Oikawa who expertly dodges the blow.

 

 

 

At school the next day, one of his classmates finds her soulmate.

It’s during recess; she wipes out completely on the blacktop and basically rips her whole knee off. There’s blood everywhere and kids are wailing from the violent scene, but it takes a moment for people to realize someone else besides her had screamed.

 

A boy, looking in the middle of a basketball match, was hunched over and holding his knee. The basketball was rolling off by itself towards the street, the other boys on his team frozen and looking confused. Eventually, two and two were put together, and the pair were led into the office together.

 

By the next class, everyone knew what had happened. His teachers talked fondly of the news while girls in his class sulked over not finding their own soulmates yet. The boys in his class scoffed and stretched out, stating that they didn’t care about soulmates, but the jealousy behind their eyes was too obvious to not notice.

Oikawa raises his hand and promptly blurts, “Why does this whole soulmate thing matter so much?”

 

The whole class whips around to stare at him like he just said something absolutely crazy, which he kind of did.

 

“What do you mean Oikawa-kun? Our society thrives off of soulmates.” The teacher explains simply. She seems a bit stunned herself. 

“Does it?” Oikawa retorts bravely, “I don’t think my life should be decided by a dumb cut on my arm.”

 

Iwaizumi nudges him, mostly just to get him to stop talking, but also because this was no way to talk to their teacher. Oikawa nudges him back as their teacher tries to come up with a response. 

 

“You will see once you find your soulmate, Oikawa-kun.” She says with a smile, ending the conversation. Iwaizumi tries to pin Oikawa with a stare, but the brunette is busy pouting in his desk. 

 

Class drags on until the bell finally rings, and Iwaizumi nearly flies up to drag Oikawa out of the classroom and towards the gym for practice. What had happened earlier was still bugging him, and the other boy still looked mad himself. How could Oikawa  _ ever _ doubt the purpose of soulmates? Iwaizumi was sure it was impossible to fall in love with someone other than a soulmate. Or could Oikawa be contemplating never falling in love? That thought in itself made Iwaizumi felt like he had sinned.

 

“What was that?” He asks harshly, glaring at Oikawa’s ugly pout.

 

“I just don’t like that my whole life revolves around this soulmate crap!” Oikawa exclaims, throwing his hands up as he pushes open the gym door with his shoulder. It’s empty, they're pretty early. “It could all be fake, you know. We could just be guinea pigs to the government!”

 

“Don’t think such stupid thoughts.” Iwaizumi scoffs. He ducks in the side room to push out the cart of volleyballs. “Our futures are real. The pain you feel from your soulmate, wherever they are, is real.”

 

“Well, I don’t accept it.” Oikawa huffs, taking a volleyball and spiking it across the gym. “Sometimes I just want to live a day where I didn’t have to hear anything about soulmates. I’m real tired of it, Iwa-chan.” 

 

“You should appreciate you even have a soulmate. You know what happened to Mei-san.” Iwaizumi mumbles, watching the ball sadly roll away, and he feels Oikawa stiffen next to him at the mention of Mei-san.

 

She was a neighbor whose soulmate had passed away five months ago. She was nearly hospitalized from the extreme chest pain she experienced. Little did she know, her chest pain was the telltale sign of a deceased soulmate. 

 

Oikawa is quiet, and Iwaizumi knows he’s won the argument. He wouldn’t let Oikawa live alone anyway, even if he did for some reason reject his soulmate.

 

“I just hope they like aliens.” Iwaizumi nearly winced from his fake tone. It was clear Oikawa was just surrendering so that they wouldn’t fight. He lets it slide.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Iwaizumi rolls his eyes as the rest of their team starts filling in, and once coach arrives, they head to the locker room to change.

 

With them clad in shorts, he catches himself scrutinizing that pale, yellow bruise on Oikawa’s calf once again. He doesn’t know what to think about his own fading bruise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has been sitting in my drafts ever since i posted ch 1. sorry for the multiple month wait just for a filler, next chapter will be more interesting

**Author's Note:**

> i will try to update frequently. in the meantime, feedback is appreciated!


End file.
